Iran claimed responsibility Thursday for shooting down an American drone, as a senior military official declared Tehran was fully prepared for an armed conflict with the U.S.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it destroyed the drone because it violated Iranian airspace, while U.S. officials asserted that the unmanned aircraft was taken down over international airspace above the Strait of Hormuz, according to multiple media outlets, including the Associated Press.
“We do not have any intention for war with any country, but we are fully ready for war,” Gen. Hossein Salami, the Guard's commander, said in a televised address, according to the AP.
The strike follows explosions on two oil tankers last week in the Gulf of Oman, which the Trump administration has blamed Tehran for perpetrating. A U.S. Navy official said Wednesday that a limpet mine used in the attack on one of the tankers, the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous, bore a striking resemblance to similar Iranian explosive devices, according to the AP.
Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami insisted Wednesday that Tehran was not behind the tanker assaults, declaring that "the accusation against Iran is totally a lie and I dismiss it firmly," according to the semi-official Fars news agency and the AP.
The Pentagon on Monday announced the deployment of 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East "for defensive purposes to address air, naval, and ground-based threats” in the region, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said in a statement.
But Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, insisted Wednesday that “there will not be a military confrontation” between his country and the U.S., while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine